


Friday.

by sagelabyrinth



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: this is more personal than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 02:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagelabyrinth/pseuds/sagelabyrinth
Summary: Holden gets unexpected news.





	Friday.

**Author's Note:**

> I lost someone close to me today. I have to get my feelings out, so I decided to project onto my favorite boy, Holden Ford.

**_God. Friday's are so fucking unbearable._ **Holden thought as he stirred in bed**, _Why can't it just be Saturday? _**

He'd willed himself to bed out of bed. It took longer than it used to. Things as after Atlanta just seemed... Like effort. Holden used to _love _work. He loved going to work almost as much as he loved his mother, and _that _said something. But after Atlanta, things changed. Bill hardly talked to him anymore. At work, he'd make it a point to ignore Holden. Unless it was required, they didn't speak. Wendy had excluded him too, clearly favoring Bill in this... Situation. God, what even was the situation? Yeah, Holden _was _an inconsiderate jackass, but wasn't he always? Why's now so different? Assuming Bill was more-so mad at his wife, Nancy, for leaving him than he was at Holden, he didn't let it get to him. Well... He tried to not let it get to him. But the ever-so persistent anxiety Holden had acquired was pushing bad thoughts into his head.

**_He hates me. I fucked up. Pathetic. Worthless. Why couldn't I have been a good person for five seconds?_**

The thoughts rang in his head constantly. 

After his shower, Holden took a valium and felt his mind ease slightly. He took time to get dressed, it was just so tedious. Putting on underwear, then socks and pants, and buttoning up his shirt.

**_Why does it have so many fucking buttons?_ **

He couldn't even bother himself to put on a tie, so he was going tieless today at work. What would anyone do? Fire him?

**_They can go ahead._ **

Holden shook that thought away. He loved his job. _Loves_ his job.

Again, taking his sweet time to put on his shoes, Holden sat on his couch and mindlessly flipped through channels. Nothing was exciting anymore. Shows he used to enjoy seemed unfunny and annoying now.

People he used to talk to,

_**Debbie.** _

were either mad at him, or just unbearable to be around. He continued to _click. click. click. pause... click._

The phone rang.

"Hello?" he lazily asked. He'd given up on addressing himself professionally ages ago. What was the point in calling himself a special agent if he was terrible at it?

"Holden?" he heard an aching voice ask from the other end. It was a female, familiar to his ears.

_ **Nancy.** _

"Nancy?"

"Yes... I have terrible news." she continued with her voice breaking. She sounded so _empty._

Dread filled his stomach. He knew. In his mind, he knew what she was going to say. But he still wasn't prepared.

"Bill's passed." Nancy quietly stated.

The words didn't register with Holden. He had heard her, but it didn't make sense.

"What?" he sounded far away, even to himself.

"Bill. He's dead."

It didn't make sense. Bill couldn't be _dead_. Holden had just seen him yesterday at work. He heard his voice, not speaking to him directly, but he _heard it._

He thanked her for the news,

_ **Who the fuck thanks someone for telling them someone's dead? ** _

and hung up. Holden sat there for a bit. He kept replaying Nancy's words in his mind, hoping that eventually, it would make sense. But they didn't. It seemed fake. Like she was lying to him.

How could Bill be dead? He was _just at work_. No. No. It was a lie, it had to have been.

_ **Nancy must still be mad at Bill and she's just fucking with me.** _

Holden urged that thought into his mind with all his might. If he believed it hard enough, it would be true, and Bill would be at work.

Then it hit him.

Bill was dead. Gone.

He sat. Numb to any emotion. he stared at the wall for what seemed like hours until he snapped to reality.

Then he went to work.

_ **Things go on.** _

When he got to the office, everyone was like the day before. Wendy was there, Gregg was at his desk, Holden's chewed-up pencil was exactly where he dropped it on the floor yesterday and wasn't bothered enough to pick it up. Everything was the same, and yet everything was different.

"Holden." Wendy's voice called for him in her office. He followed it.

"You've heard?" she inquired.

He looked perplexed, momentarily forgetting.

"About... Bill." she said as if she was on the brink of tears. It sent a rush of cold through Holden's body. He'd never heard Wendy sound like that.

"Yes."

She nodded, passing off his weirdness as an odd form of grief, "You can go home. If you need time."

"Thank you, but I think I should be here. For my own sake." 

Wendy simply gave a small nod to that and went back to her files. It must've been a cue for Holden to leave, so he took it. He sat at his desk, and did what he was supposed to.

Gunn had come down at some point to offer condolences, but Holden barely heard him. He didn't care. It wasn't really real anyway.

All day he waited. Waited for Bill to just _walk in_. But he didn't. And he never would again. Holden had to keep reminding himself that. He'd try to lean over to ask Bill his opinion, or even try to share a laugh, but then he had to remind himself.

_ **Bill's dead.** _

The words were so foreign to his brain. 

_ **Bill's dead.** _

It was time to go home.

_ **Bill's dead.** _

He took a boiling shower. An attempt to make himself _feel. _

** _Bill's dead._ **

He didn't eat dinner. What was the point?

_ **Bill's dead.** _

He laid in bed, desperately wishing the valium and shot of whiskey he took would kick in soon.

_ **Bill's dead.** _

_ **Bill's dead.** _

_ **Bill's dead.** _

_ **Bill is dead.** _

He cried. Bawled. Holden cried into his pillow, screaming out for someone to comfort him. They didn't. He cried until his throat was sore. He cried until his body wouldn't produce any more tears.

He cried until the drugs kicked in.

He slept. He hoped he wake up, and it was all just a dream.

He woke up. And it was Saturday. And yesterday was Friday. And it was real.

And Bill is dead.


End file.
